


Real

by OctoberRain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:47:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4801736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctoberRain/pseuds/OctoberRain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you close your eyes and count to ten, if you think of me when you’re sad, and if you wish as hard as you can, baby, you can do anything.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real

**Author's Note:**

> Please, if you are triggered by any of the tags above, reconsider reading this. It's not happy, and it has some graphic descriptions of self-harm. _Please_ take caution before reading.  
> 
> 
>   
> _"Now I wake up and I forget that you were gone_  
>  _Phantom limb is all that I am hanging on_  
>  _Don't stop, no stopping yet_  
>  _What if one true love's the only one that you get?"_  
>  \--Marianas Trench, _One Love_  
> 

_“If you close your eyes and count to ten, if you think of me when you’re sad, and if you wish as hard as you can, baby, you can do anything.”_

He didn’t know what that meant, but he always made his way back to the line. He found himself, even at the age of twenty-six, grasping at some semblance of courage through his mother’s words. Because even though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was a coward of some sorts. He never faced reality. He found his “strength” in his fantastical acts of self-sacrifice, and he always found himself lost in the end.

Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and pure misery. His skin, paper white, his eyes, black holes that violently drank in any form of light, reflected the man he had become. He grasped at the right side of the bed, desperately clawing at the cheap linen sheets, praying that his familiar form would be in deep slumber next to him instead of in the ground thirty minutes away. He forgot that he was gone.

His breathing settled into a rhythm not unlike that of the shuddering engine of his beloved Chevrolet Impala that he had lost the motivation to preen. His eyes pooled with wetness as he turned onto his side, refusing to stare at the empty space next to him, yet secretly hoping to catch a ghostly glimpse of what was once a head full of dark, messy hair.

He began to whisper. “If you close your eyes and count to ten…”

. . .

_One_ …

_“Dean, Dean!” he exclaimed, out of breath. “Dean, I made it! I’m going to Stanford Med!”_

_Two…_

_“That’s great, baby,” he said, eyes tight, hands on his lover’s hips tighter. “I knew you would make it.”_

_Three…_

_A kiss, deep and full of longing._

_Four…_

_Five…_

_“Can you believe it?” He rested his forehead on Dean’s. “I’m going to medical school.”_

_Six…_

_Dean smiled. He knew that wherever Castiel went, he would follow._

_Seven…_

_Eight…_

_“I love you, Castiel Novak. Don’t ever change.”_

_Nine…_

_Castiel wrapped his arms around Dean’s neck. “Be mine, Dean Winchester.”_

_Ten…_

_“I already am.”_

_. . ._

Dean swore sometimes he could still see him—the toothy smile, the crinkled eyes, the sparse stubble. It wasn’t healthy. At least, that’s what his brother told him. He tried what he suggested—go to therapy, go work on your car, go _exercise_. He lied after a few weeks and told him the hallucinations were gone. He lied because his brother was expecting a kid with his beautiful wife, and Dean wasn’t going to be the one to swallow that happiness into his pit of sorrow.

Now, staring at the untouched pillow next to him, he saw a silhouette of Castiel. _Cas_. With his beautiful soul and his kind voice and his gentle touch. Yet, it wasn’t _his_ Cas. His sad, sad blue eyes were full of pity and weren’t bright like they were in their life. They were dim, fading into his inevitable death. He believed that somehow he was still here.

“Cas?” he whispered into the room.

The phantom limb that reached out to touch his lips was cool, inviting. He pined for the pain that he felt on the day that he lost this touch. He pined for the pain because now all he felt was emptiness. He was so broken that there was nothing left to fix.

“I miss you,” he wept quietly.

All he got was a disappointed smile, as if he was saying, “I want to stay, but I don’t know how.”

Dean blinked and he was gone. _“_ If you think of me when you’re sad…”

. . .

_“Cas?” Dean asked tentatively opening the door._

_“Yeah?” he said, mindlessly picking at the sleeve of his sweater._

_“What are you up to?” he asked, flopping down on the bed next to him._

_“Thinking of you,” Castiel whispered, smiling._

_“Hmm,” Dean hummed. “Why?”_

_“You told me to think of you when I’m sad,” he replied easily. “It usually works.”_

_Dean had told Cas repeatedly as they were growing up the same line his mother reiterated to him when he was feeling down. He wished that Cas hadn’t needed it, but Castiel’s deep ingrained desire to gain approval from his family pushed his further and further back from the happiness he deserved. Dean told Castiel he couldn’t help whom he loved. That his family was wrong. Castiel just smiled and nodded._

_“Why usually?” Dean asked, cocky and flirtatious._

_Castiel grinned. “Because even you can’t win against some of my demons, Dean.”_

. . .

Dean picked up the bottle of liquor that sat at the foot of his night stand. His voice was cracked. “If you wish as hard as you can, baby, you can do anything.” And he took a swig.

. . .

_“Cas! Cas! Open the fucking door!” Dean yelled, banging his fist against the bathroom door._

_He heard muffled sobs that were trying to be drowned out by the running water in the tub. Dean knew what that meant. He had been with Castiel his entire life, since they were children, and while his strict and unhealthy upbringing had unfavorable effects on his state of mind, he knew that Castiel was getting better. The scars littered across his body told his story, but Dean was determined to etch a new beginning into his soul._

_“Castiel! Please!” Dean said. After a beat, he screamed, “I’m kicking down the door!”_

_Castiel was sitting in the tub. The shallow pool was tinged light pink from the blood dripping from the cuts and slashes that were scattered across his ribs, his arms, his chest. Dean’s heart clenched painfully in his chest. He crouched down next to his love and pressed kisses across his face._

_“Have you been drinking? Cas, you know you can’t do that,” Dean chastised gently._

_“I…I can’t, Dean,” he sobbed. His face was scrunched up in pure despair. “I don’t want to.”_

_“What, Cas? What don’t you want?” Dean cradled his face in his hands, wiping away stray tears with his thumb. “Baby, please tell me what’s wrong.”_

_“I don’t want to live,” he sobbed. “I can’t do this. I can’t. I don’t want to!” His voice grew frantic, and he suddenly stood up. Dean watched carefully and jumped in front of Castiel before he could lunge for the discarded razor at the edge of the tub._

_“Cas, no!” Dean screamed. “Fuck, Cas! Listen to me!”_

_“_ No _!” he screamed._

_Dean snatched the razor and threw it into the toilet. Castiel, slippery and bloody, got away, running into their bedroom. Castiel stood in front of their dresser, Dean’s revolver that he kept hidden in a small safe pressed to his temple. Evidently, Castiel had found it. He trembled where he stood._

_“I…can’t, Dean,” he said between hiccups._

_“Cas, baby, we can fix this,” Dean said. He felt the warm trail of tears falling down his face. He held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”_

_“Take care of my sister, will you?” he said, loading the weapon with a click. “She’s a little lost.”_

_“Cas, you said you don’t want to live,” Dean said shakily, “but you_ need _to. Don’t you get it?_ I _need you, baby. Please.”_

_Castiel’s eyes pooled with tears. “I-I’m sorry, Dean.”_

_Dean didn’t hear it. He lunged forward, grabbing the wrist with the gun. He knew Castiel was strong, and he prayed that his shaking hands were enough to protect the precious life in front of him. Just as Dean got him to pull the weapon away from his temple, a thumb hooked around the trigger and pulled. A shot resounded in the small haven that was their room, and Dean never knew that he would be holding his baby in his arms, void of life and soaked in tears and blood._

_. . ._

Dean wished. He wished, he prayed, he _begged_ whatever universal force greater than them to bring him back. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to see the bullet pass through the eye of his one love. He wasn’t ready to see him fall lifeless to the ground. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready. _He would never be ready._

He didn’t believe in heaven. He never did. To him, he was never going to see Castiel again. He would never hold him in his arms, he would never lazily kiss him on a Saturday morning, and he would never hold his hand.

_Never, never, never_.

With that thought in mind, Dean reached into the bedside drawer to grab the revolver that put his beloved into the ground.


End file.
